“I signed that I am sorry”

“It seemed like a weird thing to say, but that was the driving force that woke me up in the first place,” the actor said in his new Men’s Health cover story.

Jeremy Renner looks back on his first conscious moments with his loved ones since his near-fatal snowplow accident in January 2023.

In a newly published Men’s Health Cover story for the July/August 2024 issue of the magazine, which Mayor of Kingstown The actor recalled: “When I came to, my family was there, squeezing my toes and stuff. I woke up and they were all at the foot of the bed, and I signaled that I was sorry.”

Renner, 53, said he then asked for a pencil, “fully intubated” with a “huge tube” inside him, and managed to write: “‘Holy shit. I’m so sorry. I love you all so much.'”

“It seemed like a strange statement to me, but that was the driving force that made me wake up in the first place,” said the avenger Star added.

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

Related topics: Jeremy Renner reveals what last words he would have left his family in a note: “Don’t let me live on the subway”

After the accident, “everything was a catastrophe,” said Renner Men’s Healthincluding showers and toilet use.

“They give you medication so you don’t go to the bathroom and get constipated,” he recalls.
“And you pee in a glass. It was awful. That’s when you know things aren’t going well – you pee in a plastic jug. It took me 17 minutes to get out of bed.”

The Hurt Locker The star said that at the time, he was “happy to sometimes sit up straight, squeeze into a chair and move around a bit.”

“But a shower – everything took about half a day,” Renner lamented. “I couldn’t get anything wet. Your hair gets super greasy and gross and you stink, but I had all these clips that I couldn’t get wet and I didn’t want to risk an infection, damn it. So I washed with a sponge.”

Related: Jeremy Renner reveals moving message he gave to his 11-year-old daughter Ava after near-fatal snowplow accident

The Hawkeye The actor is grateful for his family, which is huge considering he is the eldest of seven children with a large brood of kids.

“I can say I’m damn sorry and they know what I mean. They’re as much a gangster to me as I am to them,” he told the magazine, joking, “They would kill people for me, for my family.”

And the love and protection are mutual, because Renner’s accident happened because he immediately intervened to save his nephew.

“I will not allow anyone to get hurt while I am in office. That is why I am risking my own life for my nephew,” the actor said. Men’s Health. “I’m not going to let that damn thing crush him! … I couldn’t live with that. If it were the other way around, if I hadn’t got back on the thing and then it crushed him? I wouldn’t be a good person right now. … I’d be damn well chased. Can you imagine that?”

“But I also didn’t do it because I knew I was going to get hurt, man,” Renner admitted. “I thought to myself, ‘No problem, I can do this. I’ll just jump over those tracks, turn off a button, child’s play!'”

Subscribe to our newsletter to receive more People news!

Read the original article on People.